Bankrupt Celsius Moves To Withdraw Staked ETH Stash From Lido

Embattled crypto lending firm Celsius is wasting no time in removing its stash of staked ETH (stETH) tokens from the liquid staking platform Lido. 

Lido has just enabled withdrawals, and Celsius could face a prolonged wait before it can get its hands on the staked ETH. 

Celsius Moving Fast 

Celsius’s staked ETH stash has been valued at around $784 million at current prices. On the 15th of May, eagle-eyed watchers identified a transaction on Celsius wallets for around 428,015 staked ETH to the Lido staked ETH wallet. 

“428k #Celsius $stETH on the move – likely lining up for staking directly without #LIDO in the middle. That’s the loan collateral proposed for NewCo. Should get an update during a court hearing this week – the 17th of May – No court approval needed for this, it seems.”

Now Celsius has initiated the process of withdrawing its stash from the protocol. According to data from Etherscan, Celsius has requested the withdrawal of around 428,984 stETH. The withdrawal will be carried out in batches of 1000. Blockchain Intelligence firm Arkham Intelligence had stated that Celsius had transferred nearly 41,000 ETH into a smart contract called “Figment ETH2 Beacon Depositor 1,” which was then moved to the Ethereum Beacon Chain deposit contract. 

Lido had enabled withdrawals on the 15th of May through a protocol upgrade. The company added in a statement, 

“Lido V2 introduces two major components, with the most user-facing aspect being Ethereum withdrawals. This allows Ethereum stakers with Lido to directly unstake ETH through the protocol.”

Lido accounts for nearly 29% of all staked ETH, valued at over $11 billion. 

A Growing Withdrawal Queue 

Once the withdrawal process has been completed, Celsius will receive an equal value in ETH, while Lido will burn the corresponding staked ETH tokens. According to data from Dune Analytics, the amount of stETH in the queue for withdrawal is steadily growing, with the current number at 442,000 from 141 requests. The value of the tokens in queue for withdrawals stands at around $808 million, with Celsius responsible for a majority of the stETH in the withdrawal queue. So far, the total amount already processed stands at 1858 ETH, according to Dune. 

Lido added that it had more than enough ETH in its buffers to handle the wave of withdrawal requests. The liquid staking protocol updated users through its Twitter account, stating, 

“At the time of writing, the Lido protocol has ≈440,000 ETH available in the protocol buffers. There could be large withdrawals this week. If so, some will be absorbed by this surplus.”

A Long Wait For Celsius 

Given the large number of ETH withdrawal requests from Lido, it is expected that there would be some impact on the network withdrawal queue. Lido holds a market share of nearly 30% and is the largest staking provider. This means that if requests continue to increase, Celsius could face a prolonged wait to get its hands on its stash of ETH. 

According to Tom Wan, a research analyst at 21Share, if unstaking requests exceed 10%, it could cause a significant number of validator exits and lead to longer withdrawal queues. There are speculations that Celsius could use the capital as part of its restructuring efforts or to repay some of its debts. Celsius owes around $4.7 billion to creditors.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.